Acknowledging the notice received from CPI floor leader Gurudas Dasgupta in the House on Tuesday, Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar observed: “I have received your notice of question of privilege dated August 26, 2013 against Attorney-General of India (Goolam E Vahanvati) for causing impediments in performance of your duties as a Member of Parliament by getting issued on his behalf a legal notice to you”. She informed the MP concerned, CPI leader in the House Gurudas Dasgupta that “the matter is under my consideration”.
Letter to PM
Recalling his letter to the prime minister on August 9, the West Bengal MP charged in his breach of privilege notice that the attorney general held a Swiss bank account in Singapore which witnessed “frequent deposit of huge amount of foreign currency” and “transfer of money from that account to relatives”.
“I also brought to the notice of the prime minister that the information about huge volume of transaction of money into and from account of Vahanvati was brought to the notice of Indian authorities by Singapore and UK agencies but no action was taken by them,” Dasgupta elaborated in his privilege notice.
Vahanvati was not available for his comments. One of his aides at his residence told this newspaper that “the AG was busy in a meeting”.
Dasgupta’s letter pointed out that he invited Manmohan Singh’s attention on the serious issue “in his commitment to fight corruption” and “in the national interest”.
“I am passing this information to you while performing my duty as a Member of Parliament to protect the national interest and to fight black money and money laundering”, Dasgupta stated. In the privilege notice sent under rule 223 of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in the House, the CPI leader said he requested the prime minister to find out if his “information is right”.
Dasgupta stated that he was surprised to receive a legal notice on August 24 from ‘Karanjawala and Company Advocates’ on behalf of Vahanvati, accusing him of making “false and baseless allegations” against the top law officer of the government in his letter to the prime minister, without verifying the contents of charges. The law firm representing the attorney general wanted the member to produce “for our inspection, material if any, in your possession, in support of these allegations”. The legal notice was “not only illegal, it also encroaches upon my sacrosanct privileges”, Dasgupta contended in his breach of privilege notice.
Dasgupta told Deccan Herald that he was yet to reply to Vahanvati’s legal notice.
Curtsy : Deccan Herald
Letter wrote by Sri Gurudas Dasgupta to Dr.Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister of India
My dear Prime Minister, August
9, 2013
As a senior Member of Parliament I have been provided with a
piece of sensitive information. This is about corruption and malpractices in
high places. In my commitment to fight corruption as I did always in the past,
I have decided to pass it on to you to belief that truthfulness of my
information will be appropriately done by competent state machinery. In the
national interest I seek to perform this duty.
The complaint is against present Attorney General of India,
Mr.GE Vahanvati, who is always duty bound to maintain high standard of morality
and propriety.
According to the information provided to me Mr.Vahanvati
opened an account with Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) in a particular branch
in Singapore. This was never disclosed by him. This was done by Vahanvati in
1997, as and when he was Advocate General of Maharashtra. I am told that till
2007, huge of foreign currency was deposited frequently in his account. It
might be in hundreds of crores.
Suddenly in 2007, huge amount of money was transferred to
the account of his daughter Sholeen Carrimjee in the same branch of the same
bank.
The details are as follows:
1. Beneficiary - GE Vahanvati
2. Code Name: E. Tajbhoy Vahanvati
3. Account Code: 569797 HL
4. Account handled by : U Bucher (now retired)
5. Bank's Name : Union Bank of Switzerland - Branch in
Singapore.
6. Daughter Ms.Sholeen Carrimjee is a British Citizen.
7. Husband Tariq Carrimjee is also a British Citizen.
8. The Code Name used by the Attorney General is incidentally
his grandfather's name, which is a Secret Code to be used for each and every transaction.
I am shocked to learn this explosive and concrete
information of huge black money deposit by Mr.Vahanvati was available with our
agencies like CBI, Enforcement Directorate, Income Tax and FIU for the past two
years. Our agencies were alerted by Financial Service Authority (FSA) of United
Kingdom and Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), way back in 2011 in
connection with these agencies probe against the suspected money laundering
activities of Vahanvati's son-law Tariq Carrimjee, who is based in London,
having British passport. He recently shifted his base to Dubai.
But unfortunately the Indian agencies were asked not to act
on this specific information by the high and mighty in our political system.
Mr.Vahanvati's son-in-law Tariq Carrimjee came into the
radar of agencies in UK, after they suspected illegal trading activities and
money laundering by him in London Stock Exchange in late 2009. The UK agencies found money trail to his
accounts from his wife Sholeen Carrimjee's account in UBS's particular branch
in Singapore. The inputs given by the counter parts in Singapore, the UK
agencies found that Ms.Sholeen's funds were originated from her father
Vahanvati's account maintained in the same branch.
As Vahanvati is an Indian citizen, both Singapore and UK
agencies have alerted the huge volume of money to Indian authorities, following
the principles of the International practices on curbing the money laundering
and illegal activities. More shocking was according to the information passed
from UK authorities, Mr.Tariq Carrimjee is holding an asset in the form of a
house in 2G scam case accused Shahid Balwa's real estate company DB Realty's
site in Prabhadevi site, Mumbai. Attorney General's controversial legal
opinions in protecting Mr.Shahid Balwa's Swan Telecom genuinely provides doubt
and this real estate deal should be taken for consideration for probe by CBI
team investigating 2G Scam. It should be probed to check whether these is a
quid-pro-quo angle.
Deriving benefit fully or party from the transfer of money
they received, transferred from the account of Vahanvati, they started
business. They set up three companies in UK - Somerset Asset Management LLP,
Somerset Equities Limited and Atlas Minerals Limited.
Mr.Tariq's name figured in the recent expose of 10000
persons having bank accounts in tax havens by International Consortium of
Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). According to ICIJ, where the information is
available in public domain for the past three years, Mr.Tariq is having
accounts in Banks operating from British Virgin Islands and operating a
financial service company called Fast Tycoon Limited. This is a common
knowledge in India also. But the link could not be established that he was
son-in-law of Mr.Vahanvati.
Here the big question is how come huge money of hundreds
crores landed in the UBS's branch in Singapore in the name of Mr.GE Vahanvati,
the Attorney General of India. Why people were paying money to Vahanvati, which
ultimately found in foreign account? Why people are obliging him? What was the
consideration? We have to find - from which sources and for what purpose
millions of dollars were deposited in this particular account from 1997. This
can be a tip of the iceberg. And why Indian agencies were not acting on this
shocking, concrete, point blank information received from their counter parts
in UK and Singapore? Who blocks from them acting?
It is an irony that huge stache of black money was found in
the foreign bank account in the name of GE Vahanvati, the Attorney General of
India, who leads the case in Supreme Court for Government of India on
retrieving the black money related cases.
I hereby request you to immediately order to our
investigation agencies like CBI, Enforcement Directorate, Income Tax and
Financial Intelligence Unit to get in touch with authorities of Union Bank of
Switzerland and government and legal authorities in Singapore to get the
details of the bank account in the name of Mr.G.E. Vahanvati, the Attorney
General of India to find truth in the interest of justice.
Again I am reiterating that I am passing this information to
you while performing my duty as a Member of Parliament to protect the national
interest and to fight black money and money laundering. Kindly find out if my
information is alright.
Yours sincerely
Gurudas Dasgupta
Dr. Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister of India
